


and the Force is with me

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alderaan, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Guardians of the Whills, Hurt/Comfort, Jedi Leia Organa, Jedi Luke Skywalker, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mentors, Order 66, Politics, Prequel Trilogy As History, Rebel Alliance, Sick Character, The Force, religious character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22424164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Baze Malbus, spiritual advisor to Princess Leia.
Relationships: Cassian Andor & Bail Organa, Cassian Andor & Jyn Erso & Chirrut Îmwe & Baze Malbus & Bodhi Rook, Cassian Andor & K-2SO, Cassian Andor & Leia Organa, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Chewbacca & Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker & Han Solo, Chirrut Îmwe & Luke Skywalker, Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus, Leia Organa & Baze Malbus, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Luke Skywalker
Comments: 84
Kudos: 365





	and the Force is with me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stitchingatthecircuitboard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchingatthecircuitboard/gifts).
  * Translation into Français available: [et la Force est avec moi](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22495735) by [traitor_for_hire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/traitor_for_hire/pseuds/traitor_for_hire)



> For my 12 fandoms of Christmas, Stitch asked me for a Rogue One character and one of the OT trio.

Baze remembered nothing after Chirrut's fall on the beach, save cradling Chirrut in his arms and listening to what sounded like his last words. He had to reconstruct what had happened afterwards by talking to people who had been there, which was hard because so many of them were dead, but easy because those who were still alive were very keen to talk to him. Some of them had told Baze that, at about the same time as he had been holding Chirrut on the beach, Bodhi had taken his shuttle and swept the beaches to pick up as many Rebel survivors as possible (and a few useful prisoners of war who had seen the Death Star's light growing in the sky and decided to defect). Baze deduced that he and Chirrut had been included in that group, as had a stunned and silent Jyn and Cassian, and then Bodhi had outrun the Death Star, the last shuttle to make it out undamaged. 

Or at least not seriously damaged. Baze drew a blank when he tried to think of Scarif in his waking hours, but the first night he slept without sedation he realised that some part of him knew well the rattle and shake of the shuttle, the sound of artillery impacting on the hull, Bodhi's and Melshi’s hushed swearing. They had been lucky to limp home to a capital ship, lucky to keep Cassian and Chirrut alive long enough for the major medical intervention they needed, lucky, lucky, _lucky_ \- and Baze couldn’t remember any of it, neither the good nor the bad. He was a great disappointment to historians, and he had very bad dreams.

The doctors said this was a consequence of serious concussion and multiple blaster wounds. Baze said it was his brain giving way, the natural consequence of chasing Chirrut and his damn tomfoolery across the galaxy for too fucking long. The doctors said there was no call for that kind of language, sir, and why didn't he take his husband for a walk.

“We're not married,” Baze said. You couldn't perform the ceremony on yourself, and by the time it became relevant there were no other Guardians of the Whills left that Baze knew of - and he had looked harder than he'd allowed Chirrut to know. Chirrut would not have tolerated a civil ceremony rubberstamped by Imperial bureaucracy, and Baze would not tolerate anything that brought Chirrut to the attention of the Imperial administration.

“I'm sure the chaplain will be happy to fix that, if you like,” said the head nurse.

Baze rolled his eyes. _Yeah, sure_ , he thought, _I'll hand the Rebel Alliance a propaganda scoop any day I please_. The number of people who recognised the Heroes of Scarif already made his scalp itch, and he knew he wasn’t alone in that. Whenever he saw Jyn and Bodhi, she was on the verge of snarling and he was on the verge of spontaneously melting through the nearest wall. No wonder they spent all their time trying to reboot one of Kaytoo's backups into a feasible chassis before Cassian was taken out of bacta; no-one argued if they said they had business and nobody else was fool enough to mess with Cassian's droid.

Even here in the ward the skin between Baze's shoulders itched. Too many people watching.

Cheekiness to senior medical staff aside, Baze was allowed to take Chirrut's wheelchair and guide him through the corridors to one of the few spaces designated for species-appropriate relaxation to mitigate the effects of long-term deep space living. Baze had investigated all of them, or at least the ones that were an alcohol-free zone and which he could breathe in. A breathable atmosphere was not optional, and while Chirrut enjoyed a glass of something strong and a bit of chaos as much as the next person - possibly more - Baze thought his heart would give out for good if Chirrut engaged in chaos in his present medically fragile state.

“Rock gardens or hydroponics or meditation room or library?” Baze enquired. 

“Oh, rock gardens,” Chirrut said. “You know hydroponics make me sneeze.”

“You've never been within a mile of a hydroponic garden, you lying bastard,” Baze said, taking a left turn for the rock gardens. 

“I love you too, sweetpea,” Chirrut said, grinning all over his incredibly, incredibly annoying face. Even though they were speaking in Jedhan and nobody on board except Bodhi likely had a clue what they were saying, a passing Twi'lek smiled at them like they were cuter than a basket of tooka kittens.

Damn it.

In the rock garden (walls painted to look like a tranquil wilderness probably nobody on board had seen in real life) there was a blond boy, couldn't be more than nineteen, and he was trying to lift rocks over his head. With his eyes shut, and without touching them. It mostly seemed to be working, in that he could get a pebble to chest height, and then he'd drop it.

Luke Skywalker, Baze presumed. One of the very few people more persecuted in the halls than Rogue One. People kept trying to touch him for luck, or so Baze had heard. Red Squadron had taken to bunching up around him and moving with him as a pack. One - dark hair, human, Baze didn't know him - had fallen asleep on a nearby bench with his head hanging off the edge, presumably unenthused by the early stages of Jedi training. Baze decided to walk past quietly and not disturb them - the path to the bit with all the flowers led past Luke's perch - which was going great until Chirrut stirred, broke off their low bickering conversation in Jedhan, and said very loudly, in Basic:

“Hey, sunshine! Don't you know it's good manners to turn down the lights?”

Luke Skywalker dropped a rock on his foot, tried to get up without uncrossing his legs, and fell over. The pilot on the bench jerked awake and tumbled to the ground.

Chirrut cackled very quietly.

“You old troublemaker,” Baze growled, under cover of the swearing. “ _Great_!”

Luke Skywalker was nineteen years old, born on Empire Day, raised out in the backwoods on Tatooine among the sand and the womp rats and the moisture farmers. He had learned everything he knew about flying (which was a lot) by building and breaking his own speeders in the local death gullies, and everything he knew about the Force (which was very little) by listening to the cryptic pronouncements of Old Ben Kenobi. It did not take a genius to reassemble these syllables into Obi-Wan Kenobi, and you didn’t need to be an old soldier of the Clone Wars to figure out who that was, or to work out that Luke's own famous surname was not a coincidence.

Baze felt he should be more shocked than he actually was. Most people were stunned by the fact that Luke Skywalker had been taught by a missing-presumed-dead legend – too stunned to notice the shortcomings in Luke’s knowledge or to ask too many questions. But Baze at least had hung around in bounty hunting circles long enough to be aware that the price on Kenobi’s head hadn’t expired. Every now and then new programmes ran on the holonews, attempts to track him down, rewards, leads. Baze had always thought the smart money was on the guy having fallen off a cliff in the sticks somewhere, his body rotting in obscurity. Hiding on Tatooine to watch over some kid of Anakin Skywalker’s wasn’t an option that had featured in any betting pool Baze had taken part in, but it made a weird sort of sense. If you discounted the weird absence of Luke’s mother.

What made no sense at all was that, going by Luke’s stumbling answers to Chirrut’s questions, Kenobi hadn’t taught Luke anything practical. 

_Great_ , Baze sighed to himself again. He already knew how this was going to go. Chirrut never could resist a stray. Luke knew little to nothing about the philosophy of the Force, or things to do with it that weren't swinging a lightsaber around. Which meant that Chirrut, who was certainly guided by the Force in ways Baze had only a survival-based interest in but was less capable of actually using the Force than some teapots Baze had owned, was nonetheless the best and only person on all of _Home One_ to guide Luke in his understanding of the Force.

Baze sat down on the same bench as the pilot, who hastily moved out of his way, and watched Chirrut arrive at this deduction himself. Of course, he was only looking at the back of Chirrut’s head, but after so many years he knew what he was seeing in the line of Chirrut’s shoulders, and it filled him with foreboding. 

Baze pinched the bridge of his nose and listened to Chirrut arrange lessons for Luke. And he didn’t say anything against it, because - well, the kid needed _someone’s_ help. That much was very clear.

***

After the first few visits, Luke - initially a little reticent, even deferential: someone had gone to a great deal of trouble when they taught him manners - warmed up and relaxed. Baze got used to his presence and the way that, just by existing, he dragged them into the orbit of the broader Rebellion, something Baze still wasn’t that interested in. It seemed that every time a lesson was about to finish someone would knock on the door and ask for Commander Skywalker, and then Baze’s grudging sense of hospitality would oblige him to let them in. Or someone would drop by – Princess Leia, trying to get the measure of them, Mon Mothma to talk about Jedha, a small but steady trickle of people who believed in the Force but wavered under the weight of grief and loss… None of this had happened before Luke started visiting regularly.

Baze lay awake thinking about it, listening to the quiet beeping of the machine supporting Chirrut’s lungs while he slept. 

Chirrut rasped a breath and removed his mask, proving that he was not sleeping. “You know, you think incredibly loudly. Spit it out, my love, whatever it is.”

“Shut up and close your eyes,” Baze said gruffly. “You need your rest.”

“How am I supposed to rest with you lying there like a chunk of durasteel? You know, they told me I would be more comfortable in my own bed. I might demand readmission to the medical bay.” 

Baze let out an explosive sigh. “Is it as bad as I think? Luke?”

A small, significant pause.

“Yes,” Chirrut said finally. “He can hardly shield. He only knows the Force as something he can use to dodge blaster bolts. Kenobi taught him nothing other than how to connect to the Force: he has nothing but instinct and a good heart to go on, and a good heart is easily led astray. Instinct, a good heart, a few bits and pieces of training manuals salvaged by the Alliance, and the awed memories of a few people who fought alongside Jedi. That is _all_. And this is the boy on whose shoulders they have laid the future of the Jedi Order!”

Chirrut’s voice had begun to croak towards the end, and his breath hitch. He put his mask on without Baze reminding him.

Baze swore. He wasn’t surprised, but he was angry, for Luke’s sake. He was a good kid, ultimately. A little impulsive, a little naive, but a good kid.

“Guess we’d better keep him around, then,” he said. 

“For his sake,” Chirrut agreed, removing the mask to talk. “And ours. Can you imagine if he were left to his own devices? What a mess.”

“You can hardly talk,” Baze said. He helped Chirrut settle the mask over his face again, tucked Chirrut under his arm very carefully, and went to sleep.

Not the following lesson, but the one after – while Luke’s Force lessons were a priority, Baze himself had a clashing medical appointment to make sure that his forgetful brain was just protecting him from the memory of Scarif rather than actually injured – Baze hung around with more purpose than usual. Chirrut gave him a succession of funny looks, but Baze ignored them.

When Luke started making noises preparatory to leaving, Baze cleared his throat. “You could stay for caf, if you like,” he said. “You need a break after all this Force crap, and Bodhi’s coming round anyway. You’d be welcome.”

It was stilted and too grudging, Baze knew. It didn’t sound right when it came out of his mouth. But the kid needed more support than he had once realised, and if Chirrut had volunteered them both then Baze would live up to that. Ease would come with time, and Luke had a forgiving nature anyway. Luke’s surprised but pleased expression certainly suggested that Baze’s ungraciousness had been overlooked.

Bodhi nearly walked into the damn partition seeing Luke Skywalker sitting at the table comparing podracing teams with Baze. But he’d get over it in time, too.

Luke already knew the rest of the Rogue One team, of course. He, like Princess Leia, had sought them out to thank them (although unlike Princess Leia he hadn’t argued his way in to see Cassian: Baze wondered what the story was there, and if Cassian would tell it when he woke up). They weren’t precisely friends, but they were at least friendly. He and Bodhi manoeuvred around each other carefully - there was a dead family, a dead sweetheart, a dead city and Bodhi's jettisoned complicity in the space between them. Jyn didn’t know what to do with him, this boy who made truth of her mother’s last instruction, and Cassian was still too asleep to take a view on the matter: although they’d taken him out of the bacta they kept him sedated. But Baze liked Luke despite himself, and Kaytoo said he was by far the most competent mechanic working on Kaytoo's new chassis, so it worked out fine. Not precisely friends, but close enough.

Luke knew how to work and he knew how to study: threw himself into learning to lead a squadron and rebuild an X-wing and handle a military hierarchy and sink into the Force like he understood it. He tried very hard, and Baze tried very hard not to tell him that whatever it was the Force just wasn't enough. If it were then the few hollowed-out padawans, terrified younglings and maimed generals who had made it as far as Jedha City would never have had to flee at all. Baze wouldn't have had to cut their hair and dress them like members of an anonymous crowd and teach them how to hide who they were, most with little success. The Force leaves its thumbprints all over its favourite children.

Baze kept his bloody mouth shut and had nightmares about those Jedi he hadn’t saved. Unlike Obi-Wan Kenobi, their names and faces had not shown up on the holonews because they hadn’t been found yet. They’d shown up because _heroic_ bucketheads had stripped them of their weapons and gunned them down.

Luke Skywalker had a friend called Han Solo, who Baze did not take seriously at all, and a friend called Chewbacca, who he respected. When a Wookiee with that kind of record drops by to check you're not corrupting the youth, you give him all the answers he wants. Baze didn't know their names, his own career on the shady side of the galaxy had not coincided with theirs, but he knew the type and he was just fine with them. Chewbacca had thrown in with the Alliance; Solo didn't think he had, but he had. Even Luke's squadron knew that, and they were good boys and good pilots but mostly not very sharp. They also knew, somewhere deep in their bones, that they were probably all going to die for Princess Leia, and they were fine with that.

Baze was not at all surprised. He had met one or two women like Leia Organa, mostly at the head of small armies, and though she was the very same age as Luke down to the day she had all the political smarts he lacked and had appointed herself his protector. Nobody got to meet with Luke Skywalker without very soon afterwards receiving a visit from Princess Leia, including members of Alliance High Command. Baze would have approved of her for that alone, that and the continuing visits to Cassian’s bedside, but he liked her courage as well as her smarts. He’d received a lot of thanks for his actions on Scarif by the time she dropped by, some of them more genuine than others, but this tiny princess gripped his hands like steel and said it and meant it.

“I'm sorry about your parents,” Baze said, and Leia Organa didn’t even flinch. She was not in the business of flinching from anything. Baze respected that. If those Red Squadron boys carried on getting Jyn and Bodhi into mischief while treating Chirrut as the reverend master he certainly wasn't then Baze would not be answerable for his actions, but Princess Leia was welcome for tea any time. 

***

Baze hadn’t been given any official role while his recovery and Chirrut's were still incomplete. Jyn, in a similar situation while Cassian’s spine healed and the sedatives were tapered off, was teaching sabotage and hand-to-hand combat, and she picked up a few classes in marksmanship and weapons management for Baze to handle. But they wouldn’t let him do enough to really take up his brain, and most of the time he just fidgeted. 

The day they took Chirrut off the portable ventilator and reinflated his lungs properly, Baze fidgeted to such effect that Tonc forcibly signed him off the weapons roster.

Baze swore at him.

“Get out,” Tonc said, unmoved. His class of novice marksmen clustered at the opposite end of the armoury. “I don’t care what you go and do, or where you go and do it, but look, Malbus, I understand you’re worried but you’ve already made two of my ducklings _cry_. That’s _my_ job, asshole.”

Baze opened his mouth, shut it again, and bit back an unkind comment about the ducklings not being able to cope with the Empire if they couldn't manage one grumpy old man. He stamped out, smacked the access panel until the door slammed shut behind him, and walked at random until he found himself nose to nose with the softly sparkling lights and perfect darkness of the meditation room. Someone had set it to an immersive image of deep space, all nebulas and galaxies, complete with some low and soothing soundscape that was probably meant to be the music of the stars.

“Shit,” Baze said aloud, and tried to reverse, but the door had slid shut behind him and he had only stepped into the meditation room to know where it was and avoid it, before. He looked for the light switch, but failed, and then fell over a meditation cushion. “ _Shit_!” 

“Excuse me?” said a familiar imperious voice. “Lights.”

The lights went up slowly, and showed Leia Organa, sitting on a cushion and not meditating. She was wearing plain brown fatigues, not the white she dressed in on every ceremonial occasion, and her hair was in a simple crown braid. 

“Sorry,” Baze said. “Blundered in. Took a wrong turn.”

“Don't worry,” Princess Leia said. “I wasn't focussing, anyway.” She tossed Baze a small white remote. “You pick something. I can't settle.”

“I don't meditate,” Baze said, recoiling.

“My mother told me that just trying helps,” Princess Leia said, and for some strange reason Baze sat down, chose a steaming, life-filled jungle totally unlike Jedha, and sat in silence with her for a whole hour until his hip began to creak in a way he really couldn't ignore.

“Thank you,” Princess Leia said afterwards. “That really did help.”

Baze grunted instead of admitting it had helped him too. Chirrut would be out of surgery and coming round soon, and he hadn't worried about it for a whole forty-five minutes.

“I guess mothers are always right,” he said.

Princess Leia's composure shivered like a hull breach, but she smiled.

***

The next time Luke came for his lesson Princess Leia came round for tea. 

“I hope you don't mind,” she said.

“I'm bored as hell and playing sabacc against myself,” Baze said, pouring boiling water into the teapot. “And Chirrut's about to spend hours going on about all the Force woo-woo crap I hate most. No, of course I don't mind, it's nice to have company.” He thought about this for a second, and then added “Your highness.”

“Leia,” Leia said firmly. She brought down the cups Jyn and Bodhi had acquired by methods more or less legal when Baze pointed to the cupboard, and set them neatly down on the counter. “Do you not believe in the Force? I thought -“

“Baze Malbus does not believe in the Force,” Chirrut yelled from the other room. “Bad luck for Baze. The Force definitely believes in him.”

Baze shut the door. 

“No,” he said to Leia. “I don't. If it's real, it doesn't need my belief, it just is. If it's not, what's the use?”

“Hm,” Leia said, sipping her tea.

“You?”

“I don't know,” Leia said. “Around here, people sort of expect you to. But that's the most sensible thing I’ve heard anyone say about it for a while.”

They sat in companionable quiet for some time while Luke tried to focus on his inner self next door.

“Do you mind if we do this again?” Leia said, before she left. “It was nice. Peaceful.”

“Our door is always open,” Baze said, and then - remembering the last time Kaytoo had taken that literally - added: “Except when it's locked.”

She smiled. “I'll keep that in mind.”

***

Cassian was allowed to get out of bed six weeks and four days after Scarif, which was two weeks after he had woken up with enough clarity to _try_ to get out of bed. He edged along carefully with Jyn on one side and Bodhi on the other, Kaytoo trundling ahead of him in the form of a mouse droid (Luke, Bodhi and Jyn’s better chassis was not coming along very well). He had no strength left at all after his weeks in bed: the quicksilver, quick-witted, edgy man Baze had met on Jedha had been stripped down to essentials, all large, shrewd dark eyes and nimble hands. He gripped Jyn as tightly as she gripped him, and although he leaned into Bodhi as much, it was Jyn his eyes turned to.

Bodhi caught Baze's glance and rolled his eyes affectionately. Looked like Baze wasn't the only one who had noticed the way those two orbited each other.

Five minutes of painstaking motion exhausted Cassian. The nurses obliged him to go back to bed and rest, and threw the entire Rogue One team out, including Jyn, who they obviously knew very well. Baze saw Leia go in after them - not without an argument - and the sharp way Cassian looked up at her arrival; he made a point of going back the next day and asking about it.

“Oh, she visits a lot,” Cassian said, which Baze already knew.

Baze was a patient man. He sat there and waited for Cassian to decide it would be easier to tell Baze the truth than wait him out. Cassian was still sick enough for that to be effective. 

“I used to do some work,” Cassian said slowly, “under the direct command of her father. Senator Bail Organa.”

“I never hear anyone with a bad word to say for him,” Baze said blandly.

Cassian chuckled shortly, and said something ambiguous under his breath. “There are plenty, Baze. A lot of them are dead. But he was a good man. Committed to the cause before there was a cause. _La infanta_ is like that too.”

“Cruel,” Baze observed. “Losing both parents like that.”

Cassian nodded shortly. “A loss for all of us, but especially her.”

Baze waited.

“You have to understand,” Cassian said slowly, “I was brought up on a Separatist planet. I am a Separatist, still. There was no more archetypal supporter of the Galactic Republic than Bail Organa, unless it was Padmé Amidala. And I am not Alderaanian. I think the Alderaanians still call it diaspora, even though -” He waved a hand shortly, and let the sentence drop.

“What do you call it?”

“Not Alderaan.” Cassian snorted and shifted. “You can still see some of the Alderaanians in the Alliance change their thinking when they hear me speak.”

“Dialect?”

“The difference isn’t that big. But it's distinct.” Cassian stared a hole in the opposite wall. “I was going to be professional and do my job. Didn't have to like Organa or want to spend time around him. And I didn’t - but he was... I respected and admired him. He was worth the price the Rebellion put on him.”

Baze held his breath.

“He trusted me with training his daughter. It was his personal request.”

Baze's eyebrows flew up.

“She's almost nothing like him, but she is also worth the price the Rebellion puts on her.” Cassian leaned over stiffly, and unlocked a drawer with a thumbprint.

“How was physio this morning?” Baze said dryly.

“Murder,” Cassian said, with exasperation, and dragged a box out of the drawer onto his lap. It was about the size of a small woman's hand, made of polished, precious wood, and inside was a shining silver medal studded with amber on a rich green silk ribbon. Cassian was staring at it like he didn’t know whether to clutch it in his hands or space it at the first opportunity.

“She said she wanted to reward the members of Rogue One personally,” Cassian said. “As best as she could. She has given Bodhi and Jyn Galen Erso's good name back, for instance.”

Baze wondered how the hell she'd pulled that off. Rewriting history? He had not been keeping up with the news.

“She said she knew there would be no medal ceremonies for us,” Cassian continued. “That we did not want them. But she wanted to give me this.”

Baze eyed the medal. “And this is...”

“An Alderaanian royal order,” Cassian said. “For service to the crown.” He was still staring at it. “It was her father's. By chance it was among the belongings he left on Yavin. You know, if you'd told me I would accept one of these a year ago, I would have laughed.”

Baze stayed quiet.

“She awarded it in her own name. Didn’t even use her title. Said it was personal.”

And there was a detail that Baze had been wondering about. Everyone still called her _princess_ , which made no sense if she had been the late Queen Breha’s only heir. “If her parents are dead, is she not the queen?”

“I asked her that.” Cassian closed the box. “She says Breha Organa was the last queen of Alderaan, and that's final.”

“Ah.”

“She thanked me for saving the galaxy,” Cassian said. “I told her we were too late to save her planet. She said that was different.”

“Unusual point of view.”

“You’re telling me.” Cassian handed Baze the box, and for a moment there was silence. 

“Put it away, would you,” Cassian said. 

***

Captain Solo dropped by while Baze was clearing up after his early morning weapons handling (complete beginners) lesson, accompanied by Chewbacca. He made useless small talk for a few minutes, and then said: “You helping Leia like Mister Chirrut's helping Luke?”

“No,” Baze said. “I don't have anything to do with the Force.”

“But I thought you Guardians -“ 

“Stop thinking,” Baze said crushingly. His personal faith was between himself and the universe, not nosy smuggler captains with dreams of doing the right thing. He turned his attention, instead, to Chewbacca, who was picking over the weapons. “What do you think, big brother?”

“Since when is he -“ Solo yelped, and was immediately silenced by Chewbacca telling him to shut up, it was a figure of speech, and also that these weapons were pieces of shit.

“Way I see it,” Baze said, “if they can manage these, they won't blow their hands off with the real thing.”

_Fair_ , Chewbacca howled judiciously. _Got to be careful with the cubs. Speaking of cubs, how is Princess Leia doing?_

“Fine,” Baze said. “All things considered.”

“Are you sure she's not a Jedi,” Solo said. “Because I gotta tell you, don't know what Jedha was like, but in the bits of the galaxy I’ve seen? Women like that do not grow on trees. Sometimes she just _knows_ things.”

“But not the things you want her to know, eh?” Baze said, having noticed Solo's enormous crush on Leia on Day One, or maybe slightly before. “Stop acting like you don't know what a woman with brains is like, Solo, you're not stupid.”

“Hey!” Solo exclaimed, with that familiar put-upon, much-travailed, maligned expression, spreading his hands blamelessly.

“And get out of my _damn_ classroom,” Baze said.

The Wookiee had to tow him out. 

***

Baze did not like Hoth. They had to move somewhere, true - sticking around when the Empire knew where you were, even after destroying the jewel in its naval fleet, was not wise; the Emperor had plenty of conventional battleships to call on - but did it really have to be an ice cube? No danger of the Empire showing up here. The only living things for parsecs around, so far as Baze could tell, were the tauntauns and the wampas.

At least Chirrut was well enough to manage the temperature. Plus, some combination of Rogue One infamy, Chirrut's ongoing recovery from wounds that should have killed him and surgery that had nearly done so in the name of saving him, and Leia's influence got them warm quarters.

Baze thanked her gruffly when she dropped by.

“You helped save the galaxy, the least I can do is make sure your toes don't fall off,” she said, eyeing the thermostat narrowly. “Well, I'm just along the corridor, although I doubt I'll be spending much time in my actual quarters. Luke and Bodhi are with their squadrons, but they're only the floor below. It was the best place to put the pilots, because of the hangars...”

“Don't forget to come round to tea!” Chirrut yelled, from where he was unpacking in their chilly and cramped little bedroom. It was nicer than Jyn and Cassian's, which made Baze feel guilty, although he knew Jyn was pleased with herself for swinging a) a double bed, when her rank didn't entitle her to one, b) a droid-charging outlet large enough for Kaytoo in the room when technically there shouldn't have been one, and c) a supportive mattress for Cassian. “Just because Luke no longer blinds innocent bystanders with his Force presence does not mean you are exempt from cheering the declining years of these old grandfathers!”

Baze was about to swear at Chirrut for calling him an old grandfather, but then he saw that Leia’s face was alight with real pleasure.

“Any time,” Baze said gruffly. “Chirrut talks a lot of nonsense, but he's right about that.”

“My grumpy dove, my cantankerous darling -“

“Careful of the young and innocent ears,” Baze drawled.

Leia had gone pink with suppressed laughter and embarrassment. “General Draven is next door,” she said. “Try not to wake the neighbourhood, won't you?”

“No promises!” shouted Chirrut, with audible glee.

Baze rolled his eyes and banged his head gently against the icy wall. “Shoo,” he told Leia. “Before he gets any worse.”

***

Reset was a smart idea: a collective memorial for Alderaan and all those lost to the Empire, followed by a party, which in theory represented the mourners looking to the future. In practice, Baze suspected, it represented an excuse for everyone to let their hair down. The whole thing clearly made Leia feel hollow inside, and didn’t have a great effect on Jyn or Bodhi - and Baze wasn’t sure how he felt about the destruction of Alderaan being the chosen date either - but it was a smart idea. They all needed some kind of catharsis. Anniversaries were good for that.

Baze considered himself too old and cranky to dance with the young people, and the sight of Chirrut - who still shouldn't stand for long periods - enthroning himself on a chair and accepting shots of moonshine, grinning like a king, made Baze want to roll his eyeballs back into his head until they stuck there. He swept an eye over the dance floor and decided that everyone he cared about was fine, and then noticed that Leia was being ushered out discreetly by one of Mon Mothma's closer aides. She was still wearing white and her hair was twisted into elaborate mourning braids she'd made Luke help her with, and she looked like she might be going to her execution. Baze considered it much more probable that she was about to be trotted out as the Rebel Alliance's pet conveniently living martyr, so he elbowed his way round and pushed the door. It wouldn't open.

Baze applied one of Jyn's toys to the door, which seemed more discreet and fitting to his years than kicking it in, and levered it open with one foot. The corridor behind was empty. Baze walked along it, listening carefully, and then discovered a service lift at the end of it, wide open. Like many service lifts, the pod wasn't fully enclosed, and when he stuck his head in he could hear music. Not music for dancing to, obnoxiously tasteful music, and when Baze got in the lift and rode up two floors to the source he realised that it was a bastardised version of Jedhan traditional music. Not the real thing, with the smoke and the shouting and the chants left in. The kind that wealthy pilgrims played while paying thousands of credits over the odds to visit the Authentic Holy City of Jedha.

Baze paused, took several deep, deliberate breaths, and reminded himself that it was Leia he was worried about, and losing his temper would do her no good.

Baze padded out of the service lift, swiped a drink from C-3P0 (who looked like he was in his shiny, finicky element, and who was persuaded not to announce Baze's presence with a glower that would have done credit to a cobra) and went in search of Leia. He found her without very much difficulty, a diminutive figure in plain white surrounded by much older, wealthy, patronising sentients commiserating with her on her loss when she obviously wanted to shoot things rather than perform bereavement. Someone's bodyguard, unfortunately, noticed Baze, who probably wasn't blending in; Baze shook him off, the bodyguard reacted badly, and there would probably have been an enjoyable fracas if Davits Draven hadn't wandered over and suggested that the bodyguard unhand Princess Leia's spiritual advisor.

Bereft of speech, Baze eyeballed Davits Draven furiously. He hadn't been able to stand the man since seeing the way he treated Bodhi, never mind the respect that Cassian had for him. But there was no denying that there was a powerful and powerfully irritating brain behind that bruiser's face. 

“That's right,” Baze said gruffly. “I'm here for her highness, not to talk to any of the brass, and not to deal with you, kid, so get your hands off that vibroblade you think I don't know about.”

Draven's head tilted slightly, crucially. Baze wished the kid luck.

“Any special need to speak with Princess Leia now?” Draven enquired, a fine vein of sarcasm hidden under the words. “Movement in the Force?”

Baze fantasised about pushing his teeth in. 

“This is a difficult day for her highness,” he said curtly. “And some of these people aren't here to talk to a pretty orphaned twenty-year-old because they're so impressed by her courage, you know that.”

Draven inclined his head slowly. “Reverend Malbus,” he said, with bland good manners.

“General Draven,” Baze replied, spitefully.

The bodyguard looked really confused. Baze emptied his glass, handed it to the man - who might as well make himself useful - and walked away to stand at Leia's shoulder and give anyone hoping for a _private_ audience with a shattered and grieving girl something else to think about, to wit, the best way of keeping their gonads intact.

“Hey, I'm not a droid,” the bodyguard said indignantly.

“No,” Baze snapped. “There's a point to droids.”

Leia hardly glanced at him when he arrived, though Mon Mothma looked faintly amused and slid away to another conversation, as if she felt she could safely leave Leia with him.

“Breaking and entering?” Leia said when she'd gone.

“Entering,” Baze said, stretching the truth. “The service lift was wide open. They shouldn't have dragged you up here.”

“Fundraising,” Leia said, “goodwill, all those... wonderful things...”

“Yeah, well, they can find someone else to trot out.”

“There's not much else I can do for my people.”

“Fuck that,” Baze said roughly. “You do everything you can for them, all the time. Give yourself a break.”

Leia paused, and then smiled wearily as someone else glided over, bearing unctuous condolences and rapacious curiosity about what the Last Princess of Alderaan was really like.

“Give me half an hour,” she murmured, “and then, please get me out of here.”

Baze endured half an hour, and then announced that as Princess Leia's spiritual advisor he recommended a period of meditation and reflection on this challenging day. Leia's eyes nearly popped out of her head, but she went along with it. Baze shepherded her firmly out of the room and back down the service lift and into the quiet corridor, with a brief detour to pinch a tray of delicate desserts and a bottle of smooth, honeyed Alderaanian wine. Leia stole the glasses.

“Spiritual advisor?” she said incredulously, followed quickly by: “You know this is a service corridor?”

“Who cares,” Baze said, sitting down on the floor with a grunt. “It's quiet. And you can blame Draven for that pearl of bullshit.”

Leia sat down and put the glasses down too. “I'm sure Davits had only my best interests at heart.”

Baze spat on the carpet.

“That's disgusting,” Leia said absently, turning over a miniature dessert in one hand. “Did you know they make Death Star truffles?”

“Savoury ones? Or do you mean liqueur?”

“Praliné,” Leia said snottily, through a mouthful of chocolate.

“Great. You can take your vengeance in pudding form.”

Leia clapped a hand to her mouth and bent nearly double, shoulders shaking. Baze opened the bottle, and waited for both laughter and tears to subside.

“There,” he said gruffly. “That's better.”

“I’m going to give you some kind of royal appointment,” Leia croaked, wiping her face and smearing her makeup. Upstairs they'd be much too interested in this evidence of distress, but here at least nobody would care. “Just to see your face.”

“Hey, we have that covered,” Baze said, handing her a mostly full glass. “I'm your spiritual advisor, remember?”

Leia sneezed wine all over her pretty white dress. 

“Have another dessert,” said Baze. “These ones look nice.”

***

It was Cassian who left the message on Baze's comm saying _Hydroponics, Humanoid-suitable, Ground Veg, 3B_ , so instead of ignoring it Baze went. He liked the hydroponics all right, though on Hoth there were none of the floral and few of the herb ones that provided a little greenery on Home One. Plants on Jedha had all been tough as nails, but Baze had been to a fair few more favourable planets in his time, and he appreciated the sight of a good vegetable garden.

Leia was on her knees in one of the vegetable aisles, weeding. Baze wouldn't have expected weeds to be a regular feature of hydroponic gardens, but according to the Mon Cala who exercised benevolent tyranny over the Rebel Alliance's greenhouses, weeds got in wherever there were plants. It seemed safe to say that by the time Leia had finished with the aisle there would be no more weeds, and possibly no more plants, either. 

Working on the basis that healthy occupation was good for the distressed, Baze fetched a gardening cushion for his knees and started at the opposite end of the aisle Leia had begun to devastate. He said nothing until they met, somewhere not quite the middle, and Leia collided with him.

She sat up straight and shoved loose bits of hair out of her face with wet hands. Her eyes were reddened and her jaw set hard.

“Bad day?” Baze said.

“Yes.” Leia struggled with herself, visibly, and then said: “I lost some of my sources. A whole ring gone up in smoke. We think maybe an informant...” She broke off, and looked away, teeth grinding. “The Imperial governor had them shot, in public, one after the other. Live on the holonet.”

Baze could picture the scene. The line of spies, some stoic, some weeping, all ages and backgrounds with no distinguishing features. The platform, the squad, the wall, the rhythm of death.

“Guess you'll have to get that governor,” he said.

She glanced back at him. “Not the informant?”

“You don't know how they got to the informant. Torture, hostages. You don't even know he exists. But you know what the governor did.”

Leia looked down and trailed her fingers through the strangely viscous hydroponics liquid in its plastic tank. “There are ways,” she said eventually. “I'm thinking about some.”

“Capture or kill?” Baze said. Maybe Chirrut or Luke would have said it was a significant question, but Baze had been far worse a killer than Leia Organa would ever be, and in the places he'd been the query belonged on a shopping list.

For a long moment, it was dead quiet in the greenhouse - save for the unobtrusive beeping and clicking of the hydroponics tanks. When Leia and Baze walked into rooms they tended to empty quickly, and Baze suspected this one had drained the moment the technicians caught the drift of Leia's mood.

“Capture,” Leia said, almost a whisper. “Always capture, if I can pull it off.”

That was one of the bits and pieces Cassian had let slip about Leia. It had surprised Baze then and it surprised him now. Maybe Leia could tell, because she looked up at him with burning eyes. “I'm not in this for revenge,” she said. “I want justice.”

Baze grunted his obscure approval.

“I was going to finish the weeding,” Leia said, after a few moments. “I'd like it if you'd stay.”

“You can get me some of that fancy Council caf to make up for my knees afterwards,” said Baze.

*** 

Since Baze was Leia's spiritual advisor - like any spy, Davits Draven knew the uses of gossip, and was not about to let Baze get away without the title - someone thought to let him know that Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa had returned from their unauthorised post-Battle of Hoth sabbatical, without Han Solo. Of course, the news was round _Home One_ like a wildfire at that point, especially because Luke had come back looking tortured and short one hand, but Baze still got the news before most people.

Also unlike most people, he managed to get in to see Leia. When he found her she was sitting on a sofa in the quarters she had inherited from her father, staring out of the viewscreen with a blank, lost look.

Baze went and crashed around in the kitchen making tea, foiling C-3P0's repeated attempts to assist. When he came back, Leia had put her head in her hands and was weeping hard, shoulders convulsing. 

“We left him,” she cried, snorted, and groped for a tissue. Baze passed her one, and she blew her nose hard. “We left him, they're taking him to Jabba, he'll _die_ , it was carbonite, he might already be dead, _we left him_ -“

Baze sat down next to her and gripped her shoulder. Leia leaned into his side, and sobbed freely.

Baze hoped, for her sake, that Jabba - whoever he was - had kept Han Solo alive.

***

After the retrieval of Han Solo, Leia Organa rolled back onto base carrying one disguise she had left with and one she had not. Baze put the kettle on and watched in surprise as the elements of a cantina girl's costume fell out of a pleather bag onto his alleged kitchen table.

“Nice colours,” he said at last. “Could have been hot pink, that wouldn’t have suited you at all.”

“What colour is it?” Chirrut said with interest, picking up the pieces and turning them over, feeling the weight. “I think I would look marvellous in it.”

“Rust-red and gold,” Baze said. “It's not your size.” By dint of hard work, optimism and (he claimed) the Force, Chirrut had shaken off his remaining weaknesses from Scarif, and was perfectly capable of tamboula dancing along the roof wearing the costume if given the slightest encouragement.

“Shame,” Leia snorted. “I'd be glad to pass it on to a deserving home.”

Baze poured the tea. “You won?”

“Han is free and defrosted,” Leia said. Her jaw set hard. “Jabba the Hutt is dead.”

“Mr Cantina Girl Costume, I take it,” Chirrut said, dropping the filmy skirt flap thing. “Natural causes, I assume.”

“He's also spent the last thirty years ruling that continent with an iron fist,” Leia said, sipping her tea, “selling water from a desert, if you can believe it, trading in spice, and slaves too. But yes, he was also Mr Cantina Girl Costume. And it was not natural causes. I strangled him with the chains he shackled me in.”

“Sounds like natural causes to me,” said Chirrut. “Cause -“ he raised one finger for emphasis - “and effect.” He drew the finger eloquently across his throat.

Leia rolled her eyes. 

Baze kissed Chirrut's temple. “Shut up, you old fool,” he said. “Can’t you see the woman would like to drink her tea in peace?”

He raised his cup to Leia in salute. She almost halfway smiled.

***

Jyn and Cassian must have known before the rest of them that something was afoot - it was the simplest explanation for the way they'd been rushing hither and thither in deepest and twitchiest secrecy for months - but Baze did not know for sure about the second Death Star until Leia told him in strictest confidence. He smashed a teacup without really meaning to.

Leia did not flinch.

“What now?” Baze said.

“We fight,” Leia said, and in the banked, charcoal-hot embers of her eyes Baze saw the leaping flame of Jyn's voice nearly five years ago: _the time to fight is now!_ “And may the Force be with us.”

“Ha,” Baze said explosively, and went to interrupt Chirrut's lesson with Luke specifically so he could hold Chirrut crushingly tight.

“My love, this is most improper,” Chirrut said into his shoulder, thumb running comfortingly over the back of Baze's neck. “Embracing like this. In public. Unmarried. Before Luke's virgin eyes -“

“Why _aren't_ you married?” Luke interrupted, hastily.

“There's a thought,” Baze said. “You're a Jedi now, right? After the thing with the swamp and the tiny green Jedi Master? There are no Guardians left but us - shut up, Chirrut, just - _technically_ speaking - but a Jedi could officiate, in a pinch. You could do it.”

Luke levered his jaw shut with difficulty. “You're not supposed to know about that. But I guess of course you do.” He ran his hands through his hair and made it stand on end. “Um...”

Chirrut tapped his foot. Baze raised his eyebrows.

Luke capitulated. “Can I go get Leia? She'll know how to make it all legal.”

When he'd gone, Chirrut turned to Baze. “Either you were suddenly overcome with overwhelming love,” he said, “or the Empire has a weapon that might kill us all.”

“Why not both?” said Baze.

“Better fetch Bodhi and the others,” Chirrut said. “I'm not marrying anyone, even you, without the proper attendants.”

***

After the Battle of Endor, Leia showed up at the door of Baze's weapons care class and emptied it with the authority of someone who was winning the war for the Rebel Alliance, battle by battle, planet by planet.

“What the fuck's this about?” Baze demanded, propping his hands on his hips, as the last recruit closed the door behind them.

“I talked to Luke,” Leia said. Queenly mask dropped, she had the look of a woman who had recently been hit repeatedly in the face with a large pan. “He's my brother.”

Baze blinked at her. “Shit, really?”

Leia nodded.

“Twins?”

Leia nodded.

“Huh,” said Baze.

“Gets worse,” said Leia.

“Fire away,” said Baze.

“I'm strong in the Force,” said Leia, and, by way of proof, squeezed her eyes shut, extended a hand, and caused an ammo pack to levitate off the table. Baze caught it before she could drop it onto the floor.

“Well, shit,” said Baze, into the silence. “Guess you have to believe in it now.”

Leia gave him a look of perfect astonishment. Then she sat down on the floor and laughed until she wept.

“Fuckin’ Jedi,” said Baze, ignoring his own grin, and got out the good liquor.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [and the Force is with me [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23188900) by [blackglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass)




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